here's the deal: iraq is a european construct, created out of the desert after WWI by drawing lines on a map. those lines enclosed three historically antithetical factions: sunnis, shiates and kurds. stability was maintained initially through a colonial government, a strong monarchy and then through a brutal dictatorship. when we removed that dictatorship in 2003, it was inevitable that the country would fall apart. and that is what's happening now.

iraq should never have been a country in the first place, except maybe as a smaller sunni country, with the rest going to syria and an independent kurdistan.

Technically I guess we won the war. Unfortunately, like usual, nobody cared enough to think beyond blowing shiat up.

In addition to the above comments, middle eastern people don't have the cultural foundation to have real, successful democracies. I say that as a man of middle eastern descent. They need time to change their whole culture and mindset. You can't just shove elections at them and say "you're a democracy now! Have fun!"

And the reason we didn't leave behind a residual force is because the Iraqi government wouldn't let us. We wanted to have any service member tried in a military court for crimes committed there, and they disagreed. Hence we were invited to leave.

here's the deal: iraq is a european construct, created out of the desert after WWI by drawing lines on a map. those lines enclosed three historically antithetical factions: sunnis, shiates and kurds. stability was maintained initially through a colonial government, a strong monarchy and then through a brutal dictatorship. when we removed that dictatorship in 2003, it was inevitable that the country would fall apart. and that is what's happening now.

iraq should never have been a country in the first place, except maybe as a smaller sunni country, with the rest going to syria and an independent kurdistan.

Same problem in Africa, really. Arbitrary borders drawn up by foreigners that in no way represent the real ethnic, tribal or religious groups. See also: division of India and Pakistan

here's the deal: iraq is a european construct, created out of the desert after WWI by drawing lines on a map. those lines enclosed three historically antithetical factions: sunnis, shiates and kurds. stability was maintained initially through a colonial government, a strong monarchy and then through a brutal dictatorship. when we removed that dictatorship in 2003, it was inevitable that the country would fall apart. and that is what's happening now.

iraq should never have been a country in the first place, except maybe as a smaller sunni country, with the rest going to syria and an independent kurdistan.

Except that now it is an OPEC nation, a very large oil producer, one of the largest in the world, and splitting it up geographically may be easy, but those folks aren't going to want to give up that oil revenue, and therein lies the problem - how do you split up oil money when the production of it isn't really spread out in the same way the ethnic and religious groups are?

here's the deal: iraq is a european construct, created out of the desert after WWI by drawing lines on a map. those lines enclosed three historically antithetical factions: sunnis, shiates and kurds. stability was maintained initially through a colonial government, a strong monarchy and then through a brutal dictatorship. when we removed that dictatorship in 2003, it was inevitable that the country would fall apart. and that is what's happening now.

iraq should never have been a country in the first place, except maybe as a smaller sunni country, with the rest going to syria and an independent kurdistan.

Same problem in Africa, really. Arbitrary borders drawn up by foreigners that in no way represent the real ethnic, tribal or religious groups. See also: division of India and Pakistan

Same thing happened in Eastern Europe. When the Iron curtain fell you saw the hell that broke loose there.

here's the deal: iraq is a european construct, created out of the desert after WWI by drawing lines on a map. those lines enclosed three historically antithetical factions: sunnis, shiates and kurds. stability was maintained initially through a colonial government, a strong monarchy and then through a brutal dictatorship. when we removed that dictatorship in 2003, it was inevitable that the country would fall apart. and that is what's happening now.

iraq should never have been a country in the first place, except maybe as a smaller sunni country, with the rest going to syria and an independent kurdistan.

I've been telling right wing friends of mine for years the insurgency wasn't about hating America, it was about America being in the way.

Anyone with a lick of knowledge about that region knew as soon we left the shiat was going to get real again. Whether it happened on Obama's watch or Hillary's or Jeb's <snicker> is moot. The insurgents knew we'd get tired and leave and it'd be time to make their move.

StopDaddy:Anyone with a lick of knowledge about that region knew as soon we left the shiat was going to get real again. Whether it happened on Obama's watch or Hillary's or Jeb's <snicker> is moot. The insurgents knew we'd get tired and leave and it'd be time to make their move.

We won battles. We didn't win the war.

And it will happen in Afghanistan too. I don't see how this is surprising to anyone.